Affection
by the.quiet.composer
Summary: A missing scene from just after Komatsu wakes up after being struck from behind by the Nitro.


He's entirely unprepared for it when Komatsu flings himself headlong towards him, tears streaming down the little chef's face. He opens his mouth, ready to shout; in his experience, something flinging itself at him out of the darkness invariably means some kind of attack. He doesn't know how to react when that isn't the case, when all Komatsu does is face-plant into his hipbone—and really, that has to be painful for the smaller man—and fling his cola-soaked arms around his thighs. He can't understand what is happening at first, and it takes an embarrassingly long time for it to dawn on him that he is being hugged.

"Eh? What're you…dammit, kid, if you don't get your hands off of me, I'll kill ya," he grumbles, arms lifted out of the way as he scowls down at the sniffling chef. Komatsu is singularly unimpressed by the death threat, it seems, as he shows no signs of moving. Zebra looks helplessly over at Toriko, who shrugs and smirks gleefully as if to say 'you want him as your partner, you learn to deal with him.'

Finally, frustrated and growling with enough force to make the liquid pooling around their feet shudder and ripple, he picks Komatsu up—and freezes. It is one thing to acknowledge, intellectually, that Komatsu is a small man, and another thing entirely to feel his hands close all the way around his waist. He is blindsided by a thought he doesn't quite know how to process, a little voice in his mind that calmly asserts that the bird-man had struck him and Toriko at their Weak Point when it attempted to kill Komatsu.

Frustration turns quickly to a possessive anger that thrashes in his chest, and without thinking he pulls the chef close to him, pressing him against his chest and carefully folding both arms around him; he can hear the little sounds of emotion Komatsu makes as he sobs into his chest, the man's heart thumping rapidly, the blood rushing through his veins—and he realizes in a moment of stark clarity that there isn't anything in this world he won't do to keep that tiny heart pumping. He growls again, a low warning sound that has Toriko stepping forward until he seems to realize that the growl isn't directed at him or at the chef. Maybe Toriko doesn't recognize the sound, but he does; he's made it more times than he can count, hunched over his prey, warning off other predators in the area.

Of course, Komatsu isn't prey…but he doesn't know what he is. Something to be protected and fought over. Something valuable. Something he wants to keep. He doesn't realize that his grip had been growing tighter until Toriko makes a sound of objection and moves as if to grab for him; Zebra snarls, then notices—_belatedly_, and how has he managed to get so distracted that he didn't hear the difference instantly?—that the sounds Komatsu has been making have grown decidedly distressed; with his face pressed against his chest like that, it seems he couldn't breathe. He eases his grip, reluctantly, allowing the chef to lift his tear-stained face from his chest.

There is absolute trust in his eyes, and that takes him aback too; he can't remember the last time a person he had in his grip looked at him with anything but fear. It is overwhelming, confusing, and he doesn't know how to respond. Anger still simmering in his gut, he grips Komatsu around the waist and lifts him up until they are eye-to-eye and he is forced—again—to acknowledge just how _little_ the chef is.

"Don't get cocky," he snarls, putting a little more force behind his words than necessary, seeing Komatsu strain backwards as if pushed for a moment. "If you put yourself in danger like that again, get yourself…" he hesitates for just an instant, brief enough that it's likely Toriko is the only one to notice, "…almost killed, I'll fuckin' finish the job myself." Komatsu's eyes widen, but his heart rate is slowing and his breathing is evening out and he doesn't know how to respond to any of this—but then the look in the chef's eyes grow determined, his mouth setting itself in a hard line as he nods once, seriously.

"O-okay, Zebra-san," he says, all focused intensity, "I'll try to be more careful in the future." And Zebra has to set him down then because he's afraid he'll drop him while laughing, because if he and Toriko didn't notice the bird-man until it was too late, how the _fuck_ is Komatsu—tiny, fragile, nearly-deaf-in-comparison Komatsu—going to notice something like that? He laughs, well aware that the sound is frightening, that his face is monstrous with his mouth open that wide, his ruined cheek gaping. He knows without looking that Komatsu doesn't take a step back in response to this. Even knows it without listening.

_His_ chef is made of sterner stuff than that.


End file.
